Performance of Intermeshed Spinning Basket Membrane Module in Ultrafiltration of Oil-Water Emulsion

• Published in: Water conservation science and engineering 2018-12, Vol.3 (4), p.279-287
• Main Authors: Naskar, Mithu, Das, Basudeb, Pal, Digvijayee, Sarkar, Debasish
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Baskets; Cleaning; Design of experiments; Distillation; Earth and Environmental Science; Emulsions; Energy budget; Environment; Flow rates; Fluctuations; Hydrology/Water Resources; Liquid-liquid extraction; Membrane processes; Membrane separation; Membranes; Modules; Molecular weight; Original Paper; Separation; Separation processes; Shear stress; Sustainable Development; Ultrafiltration; Water Industry/Water Technologies
• ISSN: 2366-3340; 2364-5687
• DOI: 10.1007/s41101-018-0056-4

Membrane separation is a well-accepted modern downstream technique with low energy budget relative to conventional separation processes, such as distillation, absorption, and liquid-liquid extraction. However, the process of membrane separation suffers from the serious drawback of transient flux decline from the start-up to the steady state because of two well-known operational non-idealities, namely concentration polarization and membrane fouling. Dynamic shear-enhanced (DSE) modules, initially developed couple of decades earlier, are able to effectively counter the problem of transient flux decline upon generating feed flow rate-independent high shear stress at the membrane surface. Yet with all its advancement, even the most efficient DSE module cannot totally arrest the problem of permeate decline, and therefore, periodic membrane cleaning is necessary. The present article illustrates the design and performance characteristics of a self-cleaning enabled DSE module in treatment of pine oil-water emulsion. The module has been named as Intermeshed Spinning Basket Membrane (ISBM) module as it consists of two intermeshed spinning baskets fitted with rectangular membranes on their alternate sides. The maximum permeate flux as high as 5.76 × 10 −4  L m −2  h −1 was recorded at a transmembrane pressure of 3.92 bar. Moreover, after each cleaning run of only 5-min duration, 75–89% flux regeneration was achieved in all the experimental runs.